Language Barriers....

Are no barrier to us so far, and in each country that we have been in the natives' standard of English has way outstripped our paltry non-English vocabularies. We haven't remotely needed to resort to the familiar tactic of the English abroad, that is if the foreigners don't understand you, simply speak louder. Only one person (in Germany) that has been asked so far, claimed not to speak English but her cunning gesticulation and clever use of mime more than made up for it. I think she must have been a circus clown in a previous life.

One common feature of every country that we have been in so far, (Belgium, Holland, Germany, Denmark, Sweden and now Norway) is a tendency to use variations of the good old "fart" with examples such as Ausfahrt, Utfahrt, Avfahrt, Middelfart, Overfart, Din Fart and the likes keeping our tiny minds amused on our drives. The crowning moment was when we arrived at our campsite at Etnadale where there was a sign advising "Fart Dampere" ahead, I'll leave you to work that one out!

Other notable place names included Wankum (Belgium), Dimbo, Torso and Bjorneborg (Sweden of course) and if someone in Sweden asks you for SKUM, go get a fire extinguisher quick.

Souvenir hunting in a Unesco World Heritage village (Christianfeld in Denmark) can also have its literary moments, where offerings such as those in the shop featured below are available.

Boghandels to suit all tastes and sizes and of course Souvenir Bogir Papir to complete the bathroom set. If anyone is interested, I have Mr. Martensen's mail order address.

Anyway, that's enough of toilet humour and onwards to Sweden and Norway. We drove North to a small town called Torsby following the directions of our (so far) faithful Satnav who we have christened Maud. Apart from Maud's failure to find a free camp site in Copenhagen, she had been excellent in the directions and information provided. Iris even proclaimed her undying love for the device in gushing terms. Until......

 

Maud directed us down this unsealed road and thinking that this was the entrance to our intended campsite for the night, we followed her instructions. The track got progressively narrower, tortuous and gradients steeper, until when we were told to turn left, up an incline that Ed Hilary would have struggled with, we sussed that something was not quite right. Fortunately, we found a forest clearing where we managed to turn around and reverse our steps.

Needless to say comments about Maud leading us up the garden path were rife, plus some other choice invective and no more comments such as "I love you Maud" from Iris.

 

The following day we drove into Norway on a miserable, rainy and drab day. The first lesson we learned about Norway is that it resembles New Zealand of 40 years ago, in that nothing except petrol stations are open on a Sunday. And I mean nothing. Town centres, shopping malls, supermarkets, cafes and even the churches were closed to all mankind.

Not that it really mattered, because we had no Norwegian money anyway, to fritter away on the forbidden pleasures of rural Norway.

 

 

We know the churches were empty because we stopped and looked! This one was next to a main road but not particularly close to any town or village, which seems to be the fashion in both rural Sweden and Norway. The churches were all quite big and looked like they could stage a big party if needs be.

God obviously works on the premise of "build it and they will come". Despite the apparent lack of live parishioners, the grave yards were full though.

 

 Our first night in Norway was spent at a camp in Etnadale, run by a Dutchman called Joss. Joss was either incredibly stupid or very trusting and generous, because as we arrived without money and could not get any 'til the next day, he was happy to give us credit for food, camping and fishing licences withput any I/D or surety. The next day we drove off to the nearest bank which was 16km away and could easily have done a runner but we liked the place so much we went back for another night (and paid for it all).

 

 

The Etna campsite is just below the cliff in the background which is about 350 mtres of granite. Just below the top someone has painted a Norwegian flag onto the rock surface. This seems to be a common pastime in Norway as I've seen it several times, always on sheer cliff faces.

 

 The Etna river was running right next to the campsite so of course I had to go for a fish. I had the pleasure of catching my first Norwegian trout during an afternoon's fly fishing. They were both far too small to eat though, (unless your name is Bear Grylls).

 

 



 

 The pool on the Etna river where I caught my first fish, (I'll bet you're all so excited by this, you need to stop and wipe your brows).

 

Before we left Etna we were seduced into emptying our sewerage from the campervan when Iris discovered that the disposal facilities at the campsite were "the best she had seen so far". I didn't even know she was inspecting them, but hey - whatever turns you on. We donned protective clothing and read the disposal instructions about 5 times each and still failed to understand a) which model toilet we had, and b) what the hell we were supposed to do to succeed in our task.

However, it turned out to be surprisingly simple. Flick a button, carry the waste to the superloo and hey presto it was gone. Aaah the life of today's campers.

 

Anyway that's all for now. Sorry for the delay in posting but we haven't had wifi for 5 days. After this we're off to Flam (pronounced by saying Flomm down your nose) to try the railway.